The Bulletin of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (BIFAO) has covered the entire field of Egyptology since its first appearance in 1901. Studies published in the BIFAO have a chronological spread from prehistory to the Byzantine period, illustrating the present state of research in the disciplines of archaeology, epigraphy, lexicography, iconography and philology. Among the 16 contributions that make up BIFAO 122 are the preliminary report of archaeological excavations carried out at Tell el-Samara in the eastern Nile Delta by a joint IFAO and Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities mission, which unearthed the remains of one of the most ancient villages known so far in Egypt; the study of some stone blocks bearing the name of Ramesses II discovered in 2019 in the masonry of a building in the center of the mound at Plinthine (Kom el-Nugus), which show Ramesside involvement in the western part of the Delta, particularly at the northern edge of Mareotes, although it was long thought to be devoid of occupation before the Ptolemaic period; a reassessment of chronological data from Snefru's reign on the basis, among other sources, of some unpublished photographic archives; the presentation of a set of sealings and of impressions of royal seals from the Sixth Dynasty recovered in the southern part of the governors' palace at Balat; two studies on funerary masks from the Roman period, one presenting a new complete and unique portrait, and some fragments uncovered in the necropolis of ancient Philadelphia. The excavations of the Spanish mission at Dra Abu el-Naga are highlighted through two studies, one of which concerns a series of complete hemp pieces, which provide an opportunity to consider in detail the particularities of the use of hemp, the technical characteristics of its manufacture, and the known parallels. One should also note the publication of P. Vatican 38566, written by at least two scribes, which sheds light on a little-known tradition of the Book of the Dead during the Third Intermediate Period; and of that of an unusual stele from the Greco-Roman period, most probably of Theban origin, belonging to a certain Pashermontu-panakht, whose post-mortem divinization led to his being assimilated to Montu-Ra.
